ジャン＝フランソワ・ミレー

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) was a French painter who emerged as a central figure in the Barbizon school and the Realism movement. Born into a farming family in Normandy, he trained in Paris under Paul Delaroche before settling in the village of Barbizon in 1849. There he devoted himself to depicting peasant labor with unprecedented dignity and social gravity. Works like The Sower, The Gleaners, and The Angelus—painted with thick brushwork and somber tonality—sparked fierce political debate by refusing to sentimentalize rural life.